Dive Your Hand In, Feel The Longing
by nothing-rhymes-with-ianto
Summary: As Jack talks to a comatose Angelo, he realizes again just how much Ianto meant to him, and just how special and unique the Welshman was. And he also knows that everyone will always leave him.


_Title nabbed from the lyrics of the Blue Gillespie song Paradox & Time Knot. Personally, I believe that Jack has loved and will love many more people than Ianto. But I also believe that a) Angelo was less of a "love" thing and more of Jack's desire to have a companion, a loyal someone he could trust like the Doctor had and b) that Ianto was different from Jack's other lovers, and that he was unique and special in a way Jack knows he won't ever have again._

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><p>"Did you see him?" Jack asked. "Did you see Ianto?"<p>

He knew Angelo would have clocked him in the jaw for that, but he couldn't stop himself. That pain was fresh, so fresh. Fresher than that of Angelo's betrayal. He couldn't help but look at Angelo's elderly face and wish it had been Ianto that lived.

He'd been attracted to Angelo. He'd even go so far as to say he'd been in love with him. But Angelo had betrayed him.

He remembered so many deaths at the hands of others who thought he was the devil or thought he was some sort of miracle, and either way they tortured him, killed him again and again, with no thought that maybe he was just a human being. That they could be hurting him. And he remembered Angelo's face throughout, far in the back, standing there, looking stricken and ashamed but doing nothing. Betrayal.

Ianto had betrayed him twice. For love, for loyalty. Jack could understand that. They'd made amends, put that behind them. Ianto had betrayed him. But never had he killed him, never purposefully pushed him into the dark. Jack could remember Ianto's face after every death, reviving to the Welshman's arms holding him tight, his sonorous voice mumbling nonsensical reassurances in his ear as his lungs taught themselves to breathe again and his new heart slowed to a normal pace. He could remember the sadness, the concern and love on Ianto's face, and behind his eyes, a fear that this time might be the last, that this time he might not come back.

It was something that had never happened to him. The rest of Torchwood had understood that he would always come back, and thought of him as a foot soldier. If he died, they'd stand back and wait for him, or they'd go on without him knowing that he'd find his way. But no one he'd worked with since joining Torchwood had so diligently held him in death, guided him, protected him. Loved him.

Ianto was the first. The first to hold him in death. The first to know about his curse and continue to treat him like a human being, not like a freak or an expendable soldier or a devil or a miracle. Just a man.

Jack blinked as he realized just how tightly he was squeezing Angelo's hand, the fragile bones grinding together beneath his grip. He let go.

"You'd have liked him." He thought back on how similarly he'd treated both men at one point. How Ianto was the one he truly came back for, the one he came back to after a year's worth of torture with only home and the comfort of his Welsh lover on his mind. "Or maybe not. You'd have been jealous."

He laughed to cover his grief. He always laughed to cover his grief. When was the last time the mirth had been real? His foot tapped the ground with pent up tension, emotion, and he sighed. He left them. He always left them. If he didn't, they'd leave him, the way Ianto had, the way so many others had. And usually that hurt more. He had to.

"Gotta go." He whispered to Angelo's still form. Business-like, he noted. Not nearly as affectionate as the way he'd often said it to Ianto in the middle of the night when duty called or he couldn't sleep. "Work to do."

It wasn't the first time he would leave them before they left him. It was something he had to do. It hurt when they were gone before he was ready. He had to do everything in his power to prevent that pain, to prevent himself from losing himself in the ache and the nostalgia and the yearning. It wasn't the first time he would try so hard leave first, and it wouldn't be the last.


End file.
